Hot answers tagged ancient-history
24
As Wladimir noted, the precise "vs" analysis is impossible since it depends heavily on what kind of armor, weapons, tactics, training and commanders both infantry and cavalry have, as well as economics of society (which heavily influences these things for the cavalry which is a lot more expensive to equip/train, especially heavy cavalry).
Also, it's ...
22
To sum it up: The costs simply outweighed the benefits.
You have to consider that Germania at this time was essentially one huge forest, which was very, well empty. No cities to conquer, the first German cities were actually founded by the Romans, like e.g. Aachen, Cologne or Trier. The Germans were primitive tribesmen and had little too offer to the Roman ...
16
It appears that the real demise of the Mayan Empire was a number of factors, including drought, warfare, and disease. NASA archeologist Tom Sever used satellite images combined with archeological findings to piece together the most likely scenario. Using pollen trapped in layers of lake sediment, scientists learned that around 1,200 years ago, just before ...
16
The answer to this question depends somewhat on the kingdom, geography, and era. The ancient Achamaemenid Empire of Persia (Iran) was arguably the first true empire in history, and spanned a sizeable amount of territory. It made use of regularly stationed outputs with stables always containing well-fed and well-rested horses, for messengers to quickly get ...
16
I think the OP knows that the Dravidians were in India before the Aryans, and is asking why historians don't talk more about them.
The answer is that Sanskrit (Aryan) scholarship has been going on in the west for centuries, while we still can't read the Indus Valley (probably Dravidian) script. Most of what we know about the Indus Valley civilization is ...
16
The first thing to note is that the concept of writing appears to be a very hard idea to come up with de-novo. There's only two times in human history that we know for sure it happened that way; once in the Near East, and once in Mesoamerica. (Everybody else could arguably have seen someone else doing it and copied the idea, much like the Cherokee did in the ...
16
I found about 50 different sources for your quote, all verbatim copies of each other and without any indication of which those tablets were, who discovered them or any hint to catalogue numbers. I truly hate the internet sometimes, please treat this answer as a guess, there's no way to verify exactly which tablets the quote is about.
One of the tablets is ...
16
The tablet is almost certainly a modern fake:
Despite Gordon’s certainty about the genuineness of the inscription,
he failed to find support from colleagues and, notably, entered into a
bitter dispute with Frank Moore Cross Jr (born 1921), Hancock
Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages Emeritus at Harvard.
Cross pointed to problems with ...
15
Not quite sure if it qualifies for your definition since the question is slightly vaguish, but King Tut's tomb discovery by Carter in 1922 sounds like a fit.
Another example: Finding the $22Billion treasure in Padmanabha Swamy temple in 2011 in Kerala.
Obviously, the Heinrich Schliemann's finds (Troy itself and Priam's treasure, Treasury of Minyas at ...
15
I think, it depends on the definition of a road.
Most old roads will start as a path trail, later it will be paved. Maybe it will decline and become again a trail.
I think some of the oldest roads will be a mountain pass.
An example: The Brenner Pass in the Alps was already used in the stone age (Ötzi was found nearby).
14
Why: Several factors determined the cost-benefit-ratio of war chariot. This ratio changed with different tempo in different regions, as different factors became differently important. To list the most important:
the breeding of horses changed significantly over the centuries, horses became taller and stronger, so the cost-benefit-ratio improved towards ...
14
Your examples don't really count. Yes, polytheistic religions don't consider all gods as equals. But that's simply the hierarchy of human societies applied to gods, it comes naturally with the human psyche being what it is.
Nevertheless, polytheism seems to be the more obvious form of religion: a single almighty god is very abstract and hard to imagine, a ...
14
We have essentially three references on this topic. Of these, only Caesar's could have had political motivations, as he was engaged in a campaign against the Britons. His account, however, is only marginal compared to the others, in that he does not clearly state that the Celts went to battle naked. On the other hand, both Polybius and Diodourus Siculus look ...
13
"Is there any evidence to suggest whether either polytheism or monotheism came first, as an established form of religion? Or do we even have any way of knowing?"
The oldest written records we have that mention religion are all polytheistic. The writer will sometimes claim that his god rules over the others, but this tends to have a 'my dad can beat up your ...
13
I wrote an essay on him last year, and didn't see a single reference to him dying of unnatural causes in any of the following works:
Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders 376-814: Volume 3: The Ostrogothic Invasion 476-535 (New York: Russel & Russel, 1880-1889)
S. J. B. Barnish, Cassiodorus: Variae, (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1992), 90-93
Mark ...
13
According to historian A. Roger Ekirch's At Day's Close, peoples in pre-industrial societies actually went to bed as soon at it was too dark to work, and slept (and still do sleep in such areas today) in two fourish-hour phases, interrupted by a short period of activity. He found numerous references to this in literature, from Medieval literature to Homer. ...
12
While a healthy dose of scepticism is warranted when reading any historical text, there are several things in particular to be wary of when dealing with ancient sources. One of them, as you say, is exaggerated numbers. Geography is also suspect owing to poor measurements and traditional beliefs. Probably the most notorious is the quoting of speeches which ...
11
The Narmer Palette, dating to the 31st century BCE, displays the name "Nar-Mer", the Pharoah credited with unifying Upper and Lower Egypt. There are names from before this time in later written records, which may or may not be legendary figures, and then there is Iry-Hor, which is either a predynastic pharaoh of upper-egypt preceding Narmer - or a symbol for ...
11
Basically, the time to put veterans in the front line is when you are in an attacking mode. That is, you put your shock troops in front so that they can actually deliver a shock.
In a defensive mode, you put your less experienced troops in front 1) to give them experience and 2) to have them absorb casualties and spare your veterans. If and when the enemy ...
10
Usually the ruler would divide the kingdom up into smaller territorries and appoint someone to be the leader for that territory. This has historically been a pretty common practice. From the Zhou Dynasty in China to the Roman Empire we can see examples of this. In addition, when you look at medieval kingdoms in England, France, and Germany, the monarchs ...
10
The Australian and New Zealand First Nations have an oral tradition and spoken history that goes back about 30,000 years. They have stories about how the land used to look, which seem to make no sense giving what Australia is like today, which have been proved to be true by the fossil record or geological layering.
In my opinion, this definitely counts as a ...
10
All the mathematical works of Hypatia of Alexandria for example were lost. From the secondary sources we do have, she was an amazing mathematician. Her death could be argued as the end of the classical times and the decent into the Dark Ages...
10
Prior to Philip's time and the League of Corinth (337 BC), the Ancient Greek world was fragmented in (often warring) city states and kingdoms. There is little sense in discussing a Greek nationality at a time where, for example, Athenians identified themselves as Athenians first and as Hellenes later. Pericles' reforms in 451 BC exemplify the distinction, ...
10
From Wiki:
Will Durant explains that certain pygmy tribes found in Africa were observed to have no identifiable cults or rites. There were no totems, no deities, and no spirits. Their dead were buried without special ceremonies or accompanying items and received no further attention. They even appeared to lack simple superstitions, according to ...
9
There are some minor works that have been discovered over the past twenty years or so, but nothing of any major importance that I can recall. As to whether or not these other major works have been lost forever, the answer is that they most likely have indeed been lost. The great fire of Rome that Suetonius mentions was responsible for destroying a ...
9
There are no magic recipes to win a war. Caesar's tactic was new and surprising, it demoralized the attackers who were certain of their superiority. But this only works once - once that tactic was known it was no longer effective. Note that this wasn't the only reason that Pompey got defeated, it is probably even more important that Pompey's behavior was ...
9
I'm not an expert but I thought it was a bit uncritical.
Yes it's a popular account but it did have an air of 'here's my theory, here are only examples that support it'
The disease bit works both ways, both sides meeting get exposed to some interesting new diseases. The various medieval plagues came to europe from China, it wasn't only europeans taking ...
9
In ancient Greece blonde hair was associated with beauty. For example in Homer's Iliad we learn of the unmatched beauty of Helen of Troy, who was depicted as having blonde hair. Likewise the beautiful Aphrodite was known for her golden hair, which is confirmed in Hesiod's writings, as well as many ancient artworks. There are numerous other cases of light ...
8
The Serapeum is actually a smaller "branch" of the original library, formally part of the Temple of Serapis. The temple was converted to a Christian church by Theophilus around 390 AD, and it appears this is the reference you have noted above. This "branch" was not actually destroyed, but there is no doubt that many documents were destroyed during the ...
8
This depends on how you define "history". Herodotus is generally referred to as the first historian -- 440 BC. Of course, there are plenty of people that disagree, some with good reasons others not so much and all that strike me of a Japanese saying: The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
Being facetious, the first recorded human event would be the ...
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